


Hotel Talk

by babybel



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: 8 c'rizz and charley are all nb big finish told me personally, Coming Out, Fluff, Gen, charley is clueless but also from the 20s so that's okay, happy pride month all!, nonbinary characters - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:27:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24760042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babybel/pseuds/babybel
Summary: Charley knows that the Doctor and C'rizz have very vague relationships with the concept of binary gender. She also knows that she doesn't quite fit those molds either, only she's never told anyone before.
Relationships: C'rizz & Charley Pollard, Eighth Doctor & Charley Pollard
Comments: 1
Kudos: 27





	Hotel Talk

**Author's Note:**

> just a little thing for pride month :') i love them.

“Those people,” Charley said, last into the room, “they called you- what was it?” She shut the door, closing her, the Doctor, and C’rizz into their upscale hotel suite. 

“Hm?” The Doctor looked over their shoulder at her, bothering with their suit jacket. 

“Not mister, but not miss either.” She winced. “I hope I’m not being forward.”

“Forward,” the Doctor repeated, snorting. “We’ve only lived together for the better part of a year now. If you can’t ask me anything I haven’t done my job as your friend. C’rizz, what was it they called me?” 

C’rizz was pulling at his sleeves. “Erm. I don’t remember. This image- thing-” 

“Perception filter, yes,” the Doctor supplied, gesturing for him to keep going. 

“Can I take it off?” C’rizz looked as miserable as he would had he just been soaked by a hose. “Looking human doesn’t suit me. And it makes my skin feel strange.”

“Yes, go ahead. We can recalibrate it in the morning.” The Doctor rubbed a finger on their chin. “I’m sorry, Charley, I’ve forgotten. Different planets have different terminology, it gets difficult to keep straight. Mx?”

“Mx,” Charley echoed. “Maybe. They called you that because you’re a Time Lord, didn’t they?”

The Doctor was watching with amusement as C’rizz fumbled with the perception filter he’d been wearing as a cufflink. They turned back to Charley. “They called me that because I don’t fancy binary labels, you know that.”

“But- you do that because you’re a Time Lord. An alien.” Charley clasped her hands behind her back to keep herself from chewing at her nails. This was a bit more nerve-wracking than she’d expected it to be, but she’d been thinking about it for a long time, and now was as good a moment as any to bring it up. 

The Doctor frowned. “Well, yes and no. Yes, in that my people are a lot more accustomed to gender fluidity than most, just because of the nature of our life cycles. I’ll give you that one. No, in that not only Time Lords don’t fit those gender binaries. It’s people from a million different planets, all over the universe.” They were smiling again now. “I think it’s wonderful, actually. C’rizz?”

“Yes?” C’rizz came over after setting the cufflink down on a bedside table. He sat on the bed by Charley and the Doctor. 

“In your universe, how did it work?”

“Uhm…” C’rizz thought. “It’s definitely different here, it’s more… enforced, I don’t know. Back home we did use language like husband, and- and wife, but words like man and woman mattered less, I think. We were all just Eutermesans, and people who really wanted to make a distinction could.” He gave a little shrug. 

“Did you?” Charley asked, gripped with a need to know.

“Not really, no.” C’rizz looked up at her curiously. “The Kromon cared a good deal more about it than we did, so that- changed things, but…” His voice trailed off. 

“But not Earth,” Charley pushed. “They don’t do that on Earth.” But, then, what exactly was she? She’d never known it was even possible to be anything but a man or a woman before she met the Doctor, but even before that she’d known she hadn’t quite fit. Her entire life she’d been drilling it into her head that there were no other options, just so she’d stop thinking about it. But now she couldn’t, and everything was coming up out of her, and that need to push things down didn’t seem so all-important anymore. 

“They do, and less than fifty years from your time, too,” the Doctor answered, sounding happy just from thinking about it. “You know what I’ve always said, categories exist for people to exist outside them. What’s the point of a mold if you can’t break it, eh?” They were quiet for a moment, and their smile faded slightly. “Charley, does this have to do with anything, or are you just curious?” They waited another beat, then continued. “Curious is fine, of course, I love curiosity as much as the next fellow.”

Charley found herself avoiding their eyes, and also, ridiculously, found herself close to tears. It wasn’t that she was scared, not with what they’d just both told her. It was just the fact that she’d never let herself even so much as think it before, let alone say it to anyone else. 

C’rizz, who’d always been good at reading her but lately was getting better at it than ever, held up a hand from where he sat on the bed for her to hold. 

She took it, and ran her thumb over the ridges on his knuckles until she thought she could speak. “I’m not sure,” she managed. “I’m- I’m not sure.” 

“Well,” the Doctor said slowly, “that’s a perfectly fine thing to be, Charley.”

“No, but-” Charley took a breath, stopping herself. 

C’rizz tightened his grip on her hand, just a touch. 

“It’s just-” She stopped again, knowing that if she said one more word, everything was coming out. But then, why shouldn’t it? She knew she could trust the Doctor and C’rizz, she knew she was safe with them. It was so hard, though, even now, when she had nothing to be scared of. She sighed slowly, trying to breath out all the tension sitting in her chest, making her feel sick. “I know I’m not a woman. I might almost be; it’s easy to pretend. I’m definitely not a man.” She laughed, a tiny, nervous huff. “I just think- I don’t know. I think I might be more like you.” She looked up at the Doctor - not meeting their eyes, just focusing on their shirt - then down at C’rizz. “Like both of you.” 

There was a moment where no matter how hard she tried, Charley couldn’t look either C’rizz or the Doctor in the eye, during which she held her breath, and wondered what possessed her to say that to them. 

Then, C’rizz said, “Cheers.” 

She looked at him, then, and it was easy. She realized she hadn’t made a mistake, and that was the most reassuring thing in the world. “Cheers?” she repeated.

C’rizz frowned. “Isn’t that what you say here?”

Charley started laughing before she could stop herself, and soon she heard the Doctor laugh as well. 

“What I’m saying,” C’rizz continued, speaking indignantly loudly in order to be heard over their laughter, “is congratulations.” 

“What for?” Charley asked, still giggling slightly. 

“I could tell it was hard for you to say that, and you did it anyway,” C’rizz answered. “I’m not sure I understand the trouble, but-” He gave her hand a squeeze. “Don’t laugh: cheers.” 

“Cheers,” Charley replied, quietly. 

“Cheers,” echoed the Doctor, and they were grinning. “Thank you, Charley, for trusting us with that. You’re very brave, haven’t I always said that?”

Charley gave a little shrug. Her whole body was warm with relief. “Perhaps.”

“What’s this, perhaps?” The Doctor put an arm around Charley’s shoulders. “You know I have.” 

“I know you have,” Charley confirmed, and she had to talk around the smile she couldn’t get off her face. Then, her smile began to fade. “See, the only thing is there’s a good deal of guilt that comes with it, isn’t there.”

The Doctor rubbed her shoulder a bit, but didn’t say anything, watching her attentively. 

She knew she’d have to continue, and, in a way, she wanted to. It would be so nice to get it all off her chest. “I feel like I’m hurting my mother. She loves having daughters, and I- I know it’s silly, and I know I probably won’t see her again, or at least not any time soon, but I- I don’t like the thought of her losing me.”

“Oh, Charley,” the Doctor sighed. “You’ve thought a lot about this.” 

Charley nearly snapped at them. How couldn’t she think a lot about it? It was stupid to say otherwise. But before she could, C’rizz gave her hand another little squeeze. 

“She didn’t lose you, though, did she?” he asked. 

“But…”

C’rizz squared his body to hers, so he was looking evenly up at her from the bed. “Where I’m from, there’s a saying: everything changes, but nothing’s truly lost. And I think- I think just because you might change, no one’s losing you.” 

“Oh,” Charley said softly. C’rizz was right, she knew it the moment she heard it. It wasn’t like she’d died; she’d very pointedly not done that. She’d always felt the way she did, and saying it, being honest about it, wasn’t going to take any part of her away. 

“Couldn’t’ve said it better myself.” The Doctor sat down on the bed and patted the spot between them and C’rizz. “How are we feeling, Charley?”

Charley took a seat. The Doctor and C’rizz’s shoulders here pressed to hers, and she took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Better,” she answered. “A lot better, actually. Thank you for listening.”

“Of course,” the Doctor said quietly, while C’rizz gave a little nod. “And if you want us to change anything- pronouns, or-”

“I think I’m okay for now,” Charley said quickly. It had happened fast, and while it was good, she still needed time, an adjustment period to get used to people knowing. She wasn’t sure what she wanted in the long term. She’d have time to figure it out, though. “I’ll let you know.” 

“Good.” The Doctor took Charley’s hand, threading their fingers together. After a moment’s silence, they said, “Do you think we can get films on that thing?” They nodded to a little holoprojector sitting on the bureau across the room from the bed. 

“If anyone can, it’s you,” Charley said, in a way that was at least half joking. 

“Oh, you know I can’t ignore a challenge.” They tapped their thumb on top of hers in parting before jumping up off the bed and going over to meddle with the projector. 

Charley watched fondly as the Doctor tried to get the holoscreen up. She rested her head on C’rizz’s shoulder, feeling the plates of his exoskeleton press into her cheek through his shirt. 

“They’re right,” C’rizz said. “I mean, not about a lot of things, but- you are brave. They’ve definitely got that right.”

Charley smiled, digging her teeth into her bottom lip to keep from grinning like an idiot. “Don’t get sappy on me, C’rizz.” Then, she put on her haughtiest, poshest voice, which she knew made him laugh, and said, “But thank you very kindly.” 

C’rizz did laugh, and gave her head a nudge with his shoulder that made her straighten up, smiling. 

“There!” The Doctor exclaimed from the other side of the room. A holoscreen flickered to life above the projector. “Do you think they’ve got  _ Legally Blonde _ ? I’m feeling like  _ Legally Blonde. _ ”

“What’s  _ Legally Blonde _ ?” C’rizz asked. 

“I have no idea,” Charley answered, laughing.

“Hush, you two,” ordered the Doctor, pointing their sonic screwdriver at the projector. “Oh, they have got it. Look.” They had a silly grin on as the opening titles of the film appeared on the holoscreen, and they dropped onto the bed on Charley’s other side. “Now, I saw the musical - did you know they did a musical? - I saw the musical of this one a few hundred years ago. Original cast, opening night…”

They carried on the way they often did, and Charley leaned her head comfortably on their shoulder, splitting a small, passive part of her attention between their rambling and the film. Everything was familiar: the way C’rizz was squinting at the screen with intent to take everything in, the way the Doctor provided their own commentary over each scene, the way the three of them sat together. C’rizz was right, she figured. Things would change, surely, but not to the point where anything would be lost.

**Author's Note:**

> c'rizz's eutermesan saying is canon, from the twilight kingdom(i think)
> 
> find me on tumblr @lesbiandonnanoble


End file.
